


Still

by Inessencedivided



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Austria, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Grindeldore Holiday Exchange, Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2019, M/M, Young Albus Dumbledore, Young Gellert Grindelwald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inessencedivided/pseuds/Inessencedivided
Summary: Christmas has always been somewhat of a difficult holiday for Albus - even in world where his sister never died.
Relationships: Aberforth Dumbledore & Albus Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore & Ariana Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore & Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47
Collections: Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2019





	Still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittysorceress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittysorceress/gifts).



> Grindeldore holiday exchange present for kittysorceress. Happy holidays! I hope you like it! :)  
> Request: a mix between "early days of romance" and "a celebration".
> 
> (I should also mention that the title refers to the German word "still" meaning "quiet" or "calm".)

Music I love - but never strain

Could kindle raptures so divine,

So grief assuage, so conquer pain,

And rouse this pensive heart of mine -

As that we hear on Christmas morn,

Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though Darkness still her empire keep,

And hours must pass, ere morning break;

From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,

That music kindly bids us wake:

It calls us, with an angel's voice,

To wake, and worship, and rejoice

“Music on Christmas Morning” by Anne Brontë

They spent their first Christmas together alone, just the two of them. Two boys, barely old enough to have left home, in a village in Austria. It wasn't far from where Gellert had been born. He always said his country bored him, but Albus knew better from the day they first took a portkey to Innsbruck. Gellert didn't loath the country of his birth, he just loathed approximately 99 percent of its inhabitants. Albus had found both Vienna and Innsbruck to be quite interesting in their own ways, bussing with magical and non-medical history alike. And while wizards, being small in numbers had very rarely been governed by monarchs, he had to say that the pompous displays of wealth and power of the empire of Habsburg-Lothringen was bound to leave an impression on anyone who, like Albus, had mostly seen small British villages in their days.

Gellert didn't put much stock in Christmas and neither did Albus, though he might have put in more of an effort to please his mother when she was still alive than Gellert ever had with his family. They still decided to take a few days off, found a house that was deserted by its muggel owner's who had left to visit family and made themselves at home. The Hallows could wait a few days. After all, if they managed to acquire them, they would have eternity at their disposal. 

Albus smiled and stepped back as he admired his handiwork. Over a decade of living in poverty had taught him how to achieve a lot with very little. They had only bought in a naturally grown pine tree (Albus had insisted) and then, much to Gellert's amusement, Albus had started to transfigure their involuntary host's possessions into ornaments. He planned to turn them back the next day, but for now, shining (inedible) red apples were hung on the tree. Never-melting candles shone from its branches and little straw stars softly reflected their light. The tree was the spitting image of the one they had always decorated at home. He wondered if Aberforth and Ariana were standing in front of a similar tree this very moment and if the empty space left to them were he used to be was at all perceived by them.

The sound of something heavy dropping to the floor next to him yanked Albus away from his thoughts. Gellert had dropped at least two dozen books on the small study. 

"Quite frankly, I don't know why you wanted to come here", he said, clearly annoyed by their limited resources.

"You met me in the village I grew up in. I wanted to see your home, too." 

Gellert turned his eyes towards the ceiling. 

"It's called "Namlos" for a reason, Albus. It's so boring they couldn't even be bothered to give it a name beyond "noname"." 

Albus frowned, while the corners of his mouth whirled upwards.

"That doesn't sound right." 

"No matter", Gellert waived him off. "I still took some reading. We can start by -"

But Albus had gotten up, closed the distance between them in two long strides and sealed Gellert's lips with a deep kiss.

"Shut up." 

Gellert grinned, as if to say: "Very well, if you continue..."

"Thank you for bringing me here", Albus said instead. "I know you didn't do it for your own sake." 

Gellert sighed, obviously not all to please by having been found out to have done something so altogether soft and humbly selfless for someone. 

"To be honest, your constant brooding about Christmas away from you family was starting to get on my nerves. And while I can't mend the bridges we burned, I can at least try to replicate the atmosphere of a small humble Christmas." 

With adustracted flourish of his wand, Gellert caused the last of Albus' transfigured ornaments to hang themselves around the Christmas tree. 

The scenery was quite picturesque. It didn't compare to Hogwart's opulent decoration or his mother's efforts to bring festive spirit into their isolated lives, but Gellert even thinking about the holidays was enough to chase any gloom he had about leaving his past lives behind to pursue the Hallows with Gellert. The soft glow from the fireplace and the candles was all that illuminated the room and behind the windows, the ink-black silhouettes of mountains gave one the feeling of being among the old Gods, sleeping underneath. For once it comforted Albus, being so small.

"There is one last thing." There was a strange quality to Gellert's voice. "You mentioned that your favourite Christmas memory was of your mother playing the piano. Well -" 

He went over to a corner of the room Albus had not paid much attention to before, since it was cast in shadows. Gellert grabbed the side of a ragged cloth and pulled it down from what was revealed to be an old piano. 

Albus suddenly found it very hard to swallow and find his voice. 

"Gellert, this is beautiful." He blinked rapidly. "But I don't know how to play." 

"Oh don't worry, I do." Instantly, Gellert was back to his old confident self. "I never thought the lessons my father always condemned me to would pay off some day." 

He said down in front of piano and started playing. The music was calm and almost hauntingly tender. It spoke of homes the heart could not return to and kindness given that could never be received. It reminded him of his mother in happier days, playing children's songs, while his father danced with his infant daughter in his arms. Of quite Christmas evenings, their family already torn at every seem. Of Ariana in her good moments, joining their mother and adding harmonies to the melodies she played. How in this moment, his heart could feel as heavy as a millstone and as light as a feather at the same time, Albus did not know. 

He sank down next to Gellert and watched him play. He rarely admitted it, but he did have his trepidation about having joined Gellert to look for the Hallows. Yet right now, though he didn't know the path he was walking, Albus had never felt as sure that he was on the right one.

It took Aberforth over a decade to come around and invite Albus back into his and Ariana's lives. By then, they had found the wand - stole it from Gregorovitch, really - and were lobbying for their ideology all over Europe, as tensions grew. 

It was the first time Albus set foot in Godric's Hollow since he left Ariana in Aberforth's sole care and was told by his younger brother to not show his face anymore if he couldn't be bothered to place his only family before his ambitions. Albus, believing that Aberforth was the better caregiver in any case, had obliged, albeit with some guilt weighing on his heart. 

Albus went alone that Christmas morning, he did not want to strain his luck by bringing Gellert as fodder for the fire that was Aberforth surely still simmering anger.

Since he had left it, the house hadn't much changed. It felt harrowing; like having grown several inches as a child, while still having to wear old clothes that were already at least two sizes too small. The feeling as the garden door closed behind him felt quite like being squeezed into a too tight space. Or maybe it was just his stomach clenching in anticipation and nervousness. 

Over the years, he had written his siblings and they him. But correspondence had been scarce and always on the superficial side.

As Albus knocked, it was Aberforth who opened the door. 

"You're late", was his way of breaking their decade long silence. 

"There was a delay at the port key bureau", Albus said, feeling rather silly.

Aberforth made a noice that sounded vaguely like "hmpf" and let him in. 

"She's upstairs. Get rid of your suitcase though, before you greet her. Your old room 's ready."

Albus, quite contrary to his normal behaviour where his younger brother was concerned, did as he was told. As he passed through the house he noticed that, while the outside was unchanged and well kept, the inside was much emptied than before. It seemed that Aberforth had had to sell some of their old possessions in order to keep himself and Ariana fed. Among them was, he noted with some sadness, their mother's old piano. He had secretly hoped that Ariana had kept on playing.

Their Christmas was uneventful and quite nice. His sister was mostly calm. While ste had always taken to Aberforth more, Albus had still left a hole in her life and, being a Dumbledore, she had kept it empty for him to return. 

Still, despite feeling more at home in the house of his family since they had owned it, Albus missed Gellert. 

It wouldn't be until another twenty years passed, until time and the experience they gained softened Gellert and quieted Albus' restless ambitions that Aberforth would permit Gellert to join their celebration. 

The younger man was still in a huff about having to adhere to Aberforth's house rules. They meant no magic of any kind - Ariana's condition was much more stable at this point, but no need to put her under stress for no reason - no talk of politics and certainly no lectures of any kind. 

Albus could live with those rules, but Gellert had been grumbling about them for weeks. 

Ariana was shy around Gellert at first. She was a middle aged woman by now, almost as well read as her oldest brother and wise in everything but experience with the outside world. But she was still prone to getting lost in her own mind. Conversations with her would sometimes just stop in the middle of the sentence, as she was battling whatever darkness threatened to pull her downwards and then resume suddenly once she emerged victorious. 

She had taken on knitting as a way to calm her mind and when it was time to exchange presents, Aberforth received a scarf, Gellert a bright red head that, together with his golden hair, made him look like he was on fore from a distance, and Albus received a pair of very fuzzy purple socks. 

Gellert himself had been very secretive about his present. He had even refused to tell Albus what he was getting his siblings, something Albus had thought to be rather ridiculous. He was all the more surprised when Gellert asked Aberforth, in what was clearly the continuation of a previous conversation:" Did you get it in without problems." 

"Yes, it's next to the fireplace", Aberforth answered, for the first time without the hint of an old grudge. 

"Ariana? Do you want to pull down that cover?" Gellert asked with a smirk. He pointed towards a shape that now that it was pointed out to him, Albus instantly recognised. 

And indeed, as Ariana took down the old sheet, she revealed the very same piano, him and Hellert had found at the muggel house so many years ago. 

Ariana started at it for several seconds. Then, slowly, a smile broke on her face like the first lights of dawn. 

"Thank you", she said to no one in particular.

She slowly said down. He fingers came to rest on the keys, without playing a single one. The motion was gentle; something between a caress and an exploration. Finally, after over five minutes, she hit the first note. 

"E minor" Gellert whispered so softly Albus was sure only he heard it. 

It was, as if Ariana was slowly opening a floodgate. After having first played only with one finger at a time she soon added a second and then a third until the music was flowing from her fingers as a lively river.

Albus opened his mouth to whisper "Thank you" into Gellert's ear but the other was faster 

"Before you ask, I didn't steal it", Gellert whispered into Albus ear. "Bought it from those muggles."

"I never accused you of theft", Albus whispered. "In fact, I was going to thank you." 

"You mentioned missing the piano. I gathered this would make you both", Gellert looked at Aberforth who continued staring at Ariana playing her simple melody. "Well, all three of you, happy." 

Albus looked at him, at his smooth skin, harsh features and piercing eyes and marveled at how this man could be so gentle. How he should be so lucky, he did not know, but even against his own common sense, he had proven Aberforth wrong. 

"Thank you." Was all he could say against the lump in his throat. He kissed him then; gently and almost chastely. Surprisingly, Aberforth on his other side didn't role his eyes.

Gellert broke away and joined Ariana in front of the piano. He raised his hands above the keys, looking at her as if to ask "May I?" 

She nodded eagerly, her blond hair falling in waves down her back, reflecting the candlelight. 

As Gellert started playing, Albus instantly recognised the tune. It was the same as the one he had played during their first shared Christmas. Ariana, of course, didn't know it, but she started playing simple harmonies above the melody. The tune filling the air suddenly didn't feel as sad as the time Albus had first heard it. 

For the first time in a long time, he searched for his brother's eyes to smile at him. Aberforth was looking at him as well. He laid a hand on Albus' shoulder as they both turned towards their sister and Albus' partner. They were swaying gently to the soft tunes carrying through the small cottage. And Albus' heart that, inexplicably, could never quite shake its pensive heaviness, was engulfed in warmth. 

"Albus?" Aberforth gently shook the hand still resting on his shoulder. 

Albus didn't want to turn away from the ephemeral scenery in front of him for fear it might vanish the second he ceased looking at it and so only nodded to signal his attention.

"Albus, it's past sunrise. It's time to leave."

Albus frowned.

"Past sunrise? Of course it is past sunr - ", he turned to look at Aberforth and came face to face with his very concerned looking deputy. 

He blinked and looked towards the windows. Indeed there was a soft orange glow coming from them. He rubbed his eyes to clean away the leftover tears of the night and before he could stifle it, a jawn overwhelmed him.

The harsh lines around Minerva's eyes softened.

"Come, Albus. If you go to bed now, you can catch another three hours before lunch."

She took his arm and gently helped him off the ground. Being roused from the depths of the Mirror of Erised always had similar effects on Albus as being woken from a deep sleep. It always took him a short while to regather his senses. 

He really was a "do as I say, not as I do" teacher, even though most of his students didn't realise it, he idly wondered. And wisdom truly was a coping mechanism. When he had found him in a similar position, he had hoped to spare young Harry the kind of heartache that could only come from love send towards someone who would never receive it. The boy still had so much in front of him, so many people who, while never able to replace his parents, were a vessel of their love all the same. Alas, for him it was too late. 

Minerva and him didn't pass anyone on the way to his office. She let him go up the stairs after giving his blackened hand a last squeeze. In a few hours he would be singing Christmas Carols with his staff and students, eat the richest Christmas dinner anyone could ask for and, as was his custom by now, replace Severus' Christmas gloom with annoyance by bothering him with increasingly outrageous heads pulled from Christmas Crackers. 

But for now it was time to rest his weary bones and mind and sink into what would hopefully be another dream if Christmas at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me for that twist. I'm allergic to writing straight up fluff.  
> The song I imagined Gellert playing is "Still, Still, Still", a chrstmas Carol often sung during my Austrian family's christmas celebration.  
> I can recommend this version by the piano guys: https://youtu.be/Zr7QKYMxmg8  
> Or alternatively a choral version: https://youtu.be/wDevIVRkqu4
> 
> Also, the village "Namlos" does indeed exist. I sometimes drove through it as a child and was always very amused at the name. I googled it for this fuc and found out that the name is not widely believed to be a shortened version of the german word "namenlos" (meaning "nameless"), but is instead derived from one of its first inhabitants named "Amel". How boring. (Completely unrelated, but I also found it interesting that it was first officially mentioned in 1286 and currently counts a whooping 74 inhabitants.)  
> And with this useless trivia info dump I wish you all happy holidays.


End file.
